Havana/A total of 170 deported Cubans arrived this Monday at the José Martí Airport in Havana from the United States. This is the first deportation flight of this year, after none were chartered in January. Neither the US government nor that of the island have given explanations for this absence, which coincided with the tensions between both countries, after the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.
In a brief statement published on its social networks, the Ministry of the Interior detailed that the group is made up of 153 men and 17 women. He also announced that three of them were detained “for being alleged perpetrators of criminal acts before leaving the country.” He post It was illustrated with the image of a plane from Global Guantanamo naval baseand that they were returned to a United States prison.
Although the crisis in the country, which has deepened in recent weeks, has caused the departure of thousands of Cubans in recent years, the Cuban authorities concluded their brief message by ratifying “their commitment to regular, safe and orderly migration,” and warning of the “dangers and life-threatening conditions that illegal departures from the country represent.”
The Cuban authorities concluded their brief message by ratifying “their commitment to regular, safe and orderly migration.”
This flight is recorded almost two months after the last shipment and on an unusual day compared to what was experienced last year (the last Thursday of each month). The most recent had been December 19a week earlier than usual, because it was Christmas. That day 128 irregular migrants arrived in Havana. The group was made up of 106 men, 21 women and one minor, the Ministry of the Interior indicated at the time.
Among them was Tomás Emilio Hernández Cruzformer Cuban intelligence agent detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) in Florida, after discovering that he had hidden his true position within the Island’s Communist Party in the process of obtaining residency in the United States. This newspaper has confirmed that the former official, who was in the Broward detention center, no longer appears in the ICE detention records, a sign that he was returned to the Island.
According to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) figures cited by Strong CoffeeDonald Trump’s administration deported 1,498 last year on 12 flights, bringing to 4,883 the total number of Cuban citizens expelled during the Republican’s two terms, a record that surpasses the record of the Administrations of Joe Biden (978), Barack Obama (341) and George W. Bush (416). In some cases, Cubans have been deported to third countries when the Island refuses to receive them.
Donald Trump’s administration deported 1,498 last year on 12 flights
The Governments of Cuba and the United States have a bilateral agreement so that all migrants who arrive by sea to the United States territory are deported back to the Island. The deportation flights, which had been suspended in 2020, were resumed at the end of April 2023, mainly for Cubans considered “inadmissible”, after being held on the border with Mexico.
According to data from the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), during the 2024 fiscal period a total of 217,615 Cubans arrived in that country, which brings the number of the last four years to more than 860,000, a low figure after Trump’s second term began, which has limited the arrivals of migrants to the United States in a very significant way.
